REVIEW: Duck Man
"On XX month XX date, 2XXX, a flock of mysterious criminals sacked XX city, loot vast precious stones and the other treasures. After verified, proved that is a named F.W mysterious criminal group did. Justicial soul Duck Man was given orders to enter into the criminal group area, to destroy it and take back all of the precious stones and treasure which had been stolen."
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Despite having a picture of a Keaunu Reeves looking Matrix guy on the box art (almost certainly stolen from another game), Duck Man is actually a clone of popular NES platformer Darkwing Duck.
Once again we find XX city, home of all that is bad in the Gameking multiverse, under attack from a 'flock' (ALERT, ALERT - Gameking translator has reached self-awareness!) of bad guys who have stolen some precious jewels...or something.
Your task as the eponymous Duck Man is to traverse three platform based stages (because: Game King) collecting enough of the stolen jewels in each to proceed through the exit gate. In theory Duckman should be a lot of fun. It's levels are fun to explore, with hooks to swing from, moving platforms to cross and warp portals to use (even if the limited 3 stage maximum imposed on all Gameking platofrmers mean that you'll only see each trick once or twice). Your character also has some interesting controls, not only being able to shoot and jump but also being able to hang onto any part of the scenery he touches and pull himself up to higher platforms ala, Ninja Gaiden, Bionic Commando or, indeed, the game that Duck Man is actually ripping off: Darkwing Duck on the NES.
Enemies are nice and varied, in the Gameking's own limited way, with helicopters, weird sausage men, blobby cyborgs and robot cowboys to contend with, each of whom takes a slightly different tactic to eliminate.
Once again we find XX city, home of all that is bad in the Gameking multiverse, under attack from a 'flock' (ALERT, ALERT - Gameking translator has reached self-awareness!) of bad guys who have stolen some precious jewels...or something.
Your task as the eponymous Duck Man is to traverse three platform based stages (because: Game King) collecting enough of the stolen jewels in each to proceed through the exit gate. In theory Duckman should be a lot of fun. It's levels are fun to explore, with hooks to swing from, moving platforms to cross and warp portals to use (even if the limited 3 stage maximum imposed on all Gameking platofrmers mean that you'll only see each trick once or twice). Your character also has some interesting controls, not only being able to shoot and jump but also being able to hang onto any part of the scenery he touches and pull himself up to higher platforms ala, Ninja Gaiden, Bionic Commando or, indeed, the game that Duck Man is actually ripping off: Darkwing Duck on the NES.
Enemies are nice and varied, in the Gameking's own limited way, with helicopters, weird sausage men, blobby cyborgs and robot cowboys to contend with, each of whom takes a slightly different tactic to eliminate.
Left: Duckman begins stage 2 by crossing a spike pit using a trolley. Like many of the game's nods to Darkwing Duck it only appears once.
Centre: Duckman, having swing from a hook to reach it,collects the key to unlock the exit.
Right:Duckman clings to the bottom of a platform, ready to hoist himself up and blast an enemy.
Centre: Duckman, having swing from a hook to reach it,collects the key to unlock the exit.
Right:Duckman clings to the bottom of a platform, ready to hoist himself up and blast an enemy.
Left: The status screen accessed by pausing the game shows you how many jewels Duck Man must collect for the key to appear.
Centre: Duckman swings his way across a set of hooks.
Right: By tugging at this switch a ladder will fall to allow Duckman to reach a higher level.
Centre: Duckman swings his way across a set of hooks.
Right: By tugging at this switch a ladder will fall to allow Duckman to reach a higher level.
Unfortunately for all the ingenuity on display in attempting to cram everything in, Duck Man makes a rather poor gameplay decision in trying to disguise it's overall brevity. Where other games tighten up the challenge to account for the 3 level limit, Duck Man gives you a rather easy ride, with extra lives plentiful and no real sense of danger, it instead tries to string out its challenge by making the collect-the-gem aspect a tedious treasure hunt of an entirely randomised nature.
As mentioned, each stage requires you to collect a set amount of jewels, plundered from fallen enemies, the exact number identified by pausing the game and viewing the inventory. However, in our experience, the last few of these jewels on every stage always takes an irritatingly long time to spawn. In completing the game we wandered aimlessly killing baddies for nearly twenty minutes on the games final "Offal Channel" level, before the relevant jewel finally appeared.In the relatively small stages of Duck Man, this quickly became an exercise in tedium. Worse is that once this final jewel is collected you may have advanced beyond a one way pit that cannot be recrossed.
Now, guess which side of the pit the key to the exit is going to spawn on? If you guessed 'The wrong one' you may award yourself one coconut.
In many ways, Duck man is a strong technical achievement for the Gameking. It tries its best to fit as many familiar features of Darkwing Duck into the little cart as possible. However it should have and would have been a lot more fun if more care had been taken with the level design and a stronger challenge was introduced instead of the fun sapping back and forth treasure hunt that ultimately means it's only true challenge is to the player's own endurance.
Score 6/10
As mentioned, each stage requires you to collect a set amount of jewels, plundered from fallen enemies, the exact number identified by pausing the game and viewing the inventory. However, in our experience, the last few of these jewels on every stage always takes an irritatingly long time to spawn. In completing the game we wandered aimlessly killing baddies for nearly twenty minutes on the games final "Offal Channel" level, before the relevant jewel finally appeared.In the relatively small stages of Duck Man, this quickly became an exercise in tedium. Worse is that once this final jewel is collected you may have advanced beyond a one way pit that cannot be recrossed.
Now, guess which side of the pit the key to the exit is going to spawn on? If you guessed 'The wrong one' you may award yourself one coconut.
In many ways, Duck man is a strong technical achievement for the Gameking. It tries its best to fit as many familiar features of Darkwing Duck into the little cart as possible. However it should have and would have been a lot more fun if more care had been taken with the level design and a stronger challenge was introduced instead of the fun sapping back and forth treasure hunt that ultimately means it's only true challenge is to the player's own endurance.
Score 6/10